Except for greens (yellow, white...), I always exhaust my leaves till the end, ending my session with at least an overnight brew. I am always happy with the result. When I am focused on a specific type of tea, my dedicated teapot is working day and night for a few days. I guess it must also be good for its seasoning although it is not the reason why I am doing it. I am really found of this cold long infusions !

I resteep until I'm bored with the flavor and want to move on. It doesn't always have to do with the relative weakness of the tea, but the clue does usually come from the previous steep in some manner. I do sometimes smell the leaves and get a clue there.

Depends on the last brew for me, if it's weak I won't bother with another steep. But the teas I had recently were really good, the jasmine I had yesterday that I started the afternoon before lasted about 10 good steeps.

For many teas that I drink normally, I have expectations. This is after years of smelling the leaves in a still hot pot, etc. So it has become ... routine ...

Despite the routine, I still habitually smell the leaves in the pot, however before I was testing the leaves, now I am simply enjoying this aspect.

5 steeps for a good sencha before I set it aside for a low caffeine night time brew.

For teas I do not drink normally, I go the leaf smelling route and also reflect on each steep, part of the reflection is considering how much life I feel is still in the leaves.

Began the TD with 5 steeps of Yutaka Midori LE 2010 vintage from the O-C with the Mrs. Smelling the leaves after the 5th steep tells me there is still a good TeaWater steep there for tonight, but I knew this already.

I consider it a challenge to draw out as much flavor from the leaves as possible.

I chose "I just know" not because I have special powers, but because I stop when the tea is no longer enjoyable. The exception (almost every rule has one) is puerh. I may need to get past the unenjoyable early steeps to get to the interesting enjoyable ones.

I justify my small collection of teaware by fitting the pot to the volume. That way I'm not tealogged before the tea is spent. So aged puerh goes in my new baby 40 ml yixing pot. Genmaicha goes in my glazed Den's kyusu. etc etc.

In my cup this morning - my favorite Tsuen Sencha Otsuusan 2010 from O-Cha. Almost gone - just in time for 2011 harvest.

I also brew until it is no longer a pleasure, especially with new teas. If it is a tea I know well I plan it out (i.e. not drinking long lasting pu's when time is short.) Some olderish sheng has brought me pleasure for 7-12 days. (What is your experience?)

My favorite steeps of Phoenix teas are #1 of day two. They always seem to do better after a rest.

Sometimes I may have 4-6 teas rotating. Once summer comes on that will probably change due to increased heat and humidity.

"Other"-- trial and error! I experiment and see how many steepings a certain type of tea will take. The experimentation basically consists of resteeping until the tea loses its flavor.

Pu-erh this morning, currently drinking some rose sencha. I just unpacked my tea box last night, so I am very happy. I know the school year's officially over when I wake up in my mom's house and one of the first things I see upon opening my eyes is my tea box, three feet from my bed.

I keep going until I don't enjoy the infusions any more or until I don't want more tea. So....other. If the tea has a lot more to give, I may set it aside for more infusions the next day, or even set it up with cold water for a long infusion for some 'iced' tea.

Today, had some 2007 white bud sheng puerh from Norbu, and that session stopped because of a time deadline--I was running late for a meeting--but the leaves were probably done anyway. And later in the evening, I had a rather long session with some Mao Feng from Jing Tea Shop, about 6 steeps and it might have had one more left in it, because they were rather short. But I didn't have room for one more steep in me.

Last edited by debunix on May 19th, '11, 00:23, edited 1 time in total.

Green teas I just brew out until they're done (or within a few hours of the initial steep). The amount of steeps depends on the quality of the tea.

With Oolongs I steep 4 times then usually put the vessel aside for later evening steeps. After the first four good cups, again, the amount of steeps depends on how well I timed the subsequent brews and the quality of the tea. Cheaper teas become boring and I don't like forcing myself to drink tea flavored water. Higher quality oolongs will hold my interest for longer. Sometimes, if I have something I really like, I will flip the whole clump of leaves over in a gaiwan and repack them to get more flavor out.

Then again, some days I just brew until the leaves are exhausted (or to the point where it's not worth it anymore to me). Those are usually the days I break out the high end stuff and want the tea to be as fresh as possible. On these days I brew in a small vessel (I've found 80ml to be about ideal- more than just a sip per cup, but small enough to where I won't be so full of tea after the session I feel sick), and I will stretch my tea experience out to 2 or 3 hours or more! I really love days when I can do that and just relax and drink tea. Very cathartic...

In general though, my rule of thumb is the leaves are good for about 12 hours after the last steep, and 24 hours total after the first steep. I'm flexible with that, though. I'm amazed at how long people will brew out the same leaves. I've heard of weeks of brewing the same leaf! I don't know of any tea that could hold me captive that long, and I'd be worried about the risks of leaving wet organic matter out on my counter that long and consuming it .